


though I try my heart stays still

by ZeGabz



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:43:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3588363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeGabz/pseuds/ZeGabz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He talks to Clarke often. Every waking moment, in fact, of his day is spent in conversation with her soft, melodic voice. When he closes his eyes, he can even picture her standing there, her sorrowful blue eyes sparkling and her tangled golden waves framing her face like a halo. Sometimes, it feels like she's really there.</p><p>But she's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	though I try my heart stays still

He talks to Clarke often. Every waking moment, in fact, of his day is spent in conversation with her soft, melodic voice. When he closes his eyes, he can even picture her standing there, her sorrowful blue eyes sparkling and her tangled golden waves framing her face like a halo.

“I wish you were real, Princess,” he murmurs when her voice first rings in the back of his mind. She chuckles, a light sound he hasn’t heard in what feels like a thousand lifetimes. 

_You may be crazy, Bellamy, but you’re not mad. I am real._

“You’re just not here.”

_Yes._

He shuts his eyes, willing the image of her tear-stained face from their farewell into his mind. “I miss you,” he whispers, willing the building moisture behind his eyelids away. She, or his imagination, whatever, doesn’t answer for a long time.

_I wish I was here._

“Then why aren’t you?”

_You know why. You always know why._

He does. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much.

 

They keep busy. Downtime means thinking, and thinking means remembering, so his people are never still. Harper begins weaving baskets and figurines out of thin twigs she finds on the ground; Bellamy finds a small fox sitting on a bed of wildflowers outside of the camp one morning. Jackson takes Monty, who still cannot look Jasper in the eye, under his wing. Jasper wanders, avoiding Bellamy and Monty, sometimes sitting with Miller, who spends a lot of time alongside his father, eyes constantly fixed on the horizon.

Bellamy, interestingly enough, spends his days with Kane.

Two weeks into Clarke’s exile, Kane emerges from his vigil at Abby’s bedside, and takes Bellamy for a long hike through the forest to “look for supplies.” Bellamy has been on those kinds of walks before. Kane doesn’t quite hold the same enchantment as his princess.

_Your princess, Bellamy? Really?_

He shakes his head. She was never his princess; he was her knight.

_Don’t sell yourself short, Belllamy. You were a king._

And what was he now?

_Well that’s up to you, now isn’t it?_

Kane glances over at him. “What do you think it is about them?” he asks quietly. Bellamy turns to look at the would-be-chancellor.

“Them?”

“The Griffin women.” Bellamy’s heart clenches. “What is it about them that makes men like us-“

“Hopeless and hopeful at the same time?” Bellamy finishes. Kane’s silence is answer enough. 

_He loves my mom. Sound familiar?_

“How long?” he asks Kane, who just furrows his brow at him woefully. “How long have you loved Abby Griffin?” Kane just raises an eyebrow.

“How long have _you_ loved Clarke?”

_Yeah, Bellamy, since when? Since the day in the bunker? Since I closed the dropship door? Since I told you I couldn't lose you?_

They don’t talk, turning around and heading back to Camp Jaha in silence. They don’t need to talk. They know the answers, anyways.

 

Abby reinstates him into the guard, and Kane promotes him to lieutenant. Miller, Jasper, and Octavia are also instated. Harper is offered a position as well, but she quietly declines, hands shaking and eyes haunted. He makes a note to check in on her often.

_Look at the circles under her eyes. She’s been having nightmares._

“Do you?” he mutters.

_Yes. Every night. And I wake up alone, wishing you were there._

“You’re the one who left, Princess.”

_I know. And I promise it hurts me as much as it hurts you._

“I highly doubt that.”

“Doubt what?” Kane asks, strolling to stand beside him. Bellamy blinks, looking around. It’s time for his and Kane’s guard shift; Miller and his father have just gotten back from their perimeter walk.

“Nothing,” he mutters.

_Do you ever look for me during these walks?_

Every time. He is desperate for a glimpse of her golden hair, to hear her voice in front of him, and not just in his head.

_Am I not good enough?_

“How far do you suppose the nearest Grounder clan is?” Kane asks.

“Not even close,” Bellamy replies. Kane raises an eyebrow, and Bellamy realizes he has no clue who he was replying to.

_You must be crazy._

Maybe she’s right. She usually is.

“Uh, even if I knew where the nearest Lexa-ville was, I wouldn’t want to visit them any time soon,” Bellamy replies hastily, attempting to refocus. It’s a good thing he didn’t see Clarke’s face when she realized Lexa was abandoning her. 

He would’ve brought hell on the commander of the ground.

“We can’t survive on our own for long,” Kane points out, eyes scanning the wilderness. Bellamy snorts.

_We survived. We did good, Bellamy._

“I don’t trust them,” he says. Kane sighs.

“We have to try,” he says quietly. Bellamy’s eyes flash. 

“Clarke tried,” he growls.

_And look where it got me._

He looks up at the sky, glimpses of blue peeking through the sea of green leaves, and wonders if Clarke is seeing the same thing he is. If she’s gone back to the Mountain, the dropship. If, despite everything, she’s with the Grounder commander who looked at her with a gaze he’s felt on his own face, the gaze of a mortal staring into the sun.

_The sun and the moon. What a pair we make._

What a pair indeed, Bellamy muses as Kane wisely changes the subject to hunting patrols.

 

Her voice becomes a face three months later, when Clarke, dressed in complete grounder gear and wielding both a sword and a gun, cautiously approaches the gates while he’s on duty. Her eyes inspect the walls they’ve been constructing with something akin to pride before wandering up and meeting his. 

_Hello, stranger._

“Clarke?” he whispers. She can certainly not hear him, but her lips curl into a small smile and she nods.

_Are you going to let me in?_

“Open the gates!” he shouts.

 

She confines herself the the med bay and her tent, but it feels like the entire camp has changed because of her presence. She’s like a myth around camp, the beautiful Angel of Death who disappeared after saving their children. Everyone throws glances at her tent, and whenever she’s spotted, the whispers strike up.

She never comes to him, so he never comes to her. And it kills him.

Her voice stays in his mind, taunting him.

“She asked about you today,” Raven comments to Bellamy as they sit together eating their lunches. Bellamy blinks.

“Oh.”

_This from the same man who can give impassioned speeches on a whim?_

Raven lifts an eyebrow. “Oh come on, Bellamy, I know you’re curious.” He bites his lip to keep from admitting so much. She studies him curiously, and he feels like one of her damn equations. It pisses him off.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” he demands.

She sighs. “Go and see her.”

“She doesn’t want me to.”

_Your face is a reminder of everything I did. Everything we did._

“You can’t know that,” Raven scoffs.

“I do.” Raven sighs, but drops the matter, and they eat in quiet until Wick saunters over and strikes up a cheerful argument with the mechanic. 

Octavia finds him next.

“I would’ve thought you’d be at her beck and call,” she says bluntly, sitting beside him while he takes a break from the wall’s construction.

He rolls his eyes. “You’re hilarious, O.”

“Look, I still don’t like what she did,” Octavia says seriously, “And I’ll probably be pissed at her for the rest of my life.” She takes a deep breath. “But I understand why. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. And it also doesn’t mean I want her to be alone when she needs you the most.”

“She doesn’t need me,” he mumbles.

_I don’t need anyone. I can’t need anyone._

Octavia laughs, actually laughs. “That’s a lie, Bell. I hope you realize that sooner rather than later.”

 

That night, he hears screams. He’s out of his cot and across Camp Jaha in an instant, because he knows those screams all too well. They haunt his dreams every night.

He doesn’t even think as he bursts into her tent, where she’s thrashing violently in her sleep. Her cheeks are sticky and tearstained. Before he even realizes it he’s in her cot beside her, pulling her into his arms.

“Shhh, Clarke, I’m here, it’s okay,” he murmurs, one hand stroking her hair, the other pulling her closer until she’s pressed tightly against him. She doesn't wake.

_How does nobody notice the pain I’m still in?_

She whimpers, snuggling closer and burying her face in his neck. "My fault," she mumbles in a heartbreakingly small voice. He peppers kisses into her hair, whispering words of comfort into her hair until she finally sinks into a dreamless slumber. 

He lets himself hold her for a few moments, and imagine a world where he could do this every night without having to chase her demons away. A world where she didn't fight the demons alone, a world where he could bear the pain for her.

But that world does not exist, and never will, so he gently slides away from her, presses a chaste kiss to her temple, and leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> Oops, angsty ending! Don't worry, in my mind they get married the following year.
> 
> Also, don't mistake Bellamy's bitterness towards Lexa as me disliking her. Lexa is my queen.


End file.
